Uniting the Patchwork: Measuring State and Local Immigrant Contexts

With federal immigration action stalled, state and local governments have taken measures over the last 15 years to control immigration, leading to widely varying immigration policy contexts across localities. Using a wide array of metrics, many researchers have attempted to measure these diverse local contexts. In this brief, we summarize attempts to measure immigrant contexts, including policies toward immigrants and demographic, economic, and attitudinal factors. We review research that ties these contexts to the well-being of immigrants or of the communities they live in, and we evaluate the state of research to date on immigrant contexts.

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